The Glass Wall

1953
Approved
1h 22m

IMDb RATING

6.8/10

1.4K

YOUR RATING

Play trailer2:05

1 Video

48 Photos

Film Noir Drama

Peter is a refugee who wants to make a better life for himself in America, but he doesn't have the proper papers. Desperate for entry, he jumps ship and flees to New York to search for a Wor... Read allPeter is a refugee who wants to make a better life for himself in America, but he doesn't have the proper papers. Desperate for entry, he jumps ship and flees to New York to search for a World War II veteran whom he helped during the war.Peter is a refugee who wants to make a better life for himself in America, but he doesn't have the proper papers. Desperate for entry, he jumps ship and flees to New York to search for a World War II veteran whom he helped during the war.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.8/10

1.4K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 win total

Freddie
(as Joseph Turkel)

Else Neft

Mrs. Zakoyla

Michael Fox

Toomey

Nesdon Booth

Monroe
(as Ned Booth)

Kathleen Freeman

Zelda

Juney Ellis

Girl Friend

Jack Teagarden

Jack Teagarden

Shorty Rogers and His Giants

Shorty Rogers and His Band
(as Shorty Rogers and His Band)

Leon Alton

Party Guest
(uncredited)

Phil Bloom

Pedestrian
(uncredited)

Director
- Maxwell Shane
Writers
- Ivan Tors
- Maxwell Shane
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
Along with Jack Teagarden (trombone) in the nightclub sequence, the band's Jimmy Giuffre (saxophone) on the far left and Shelly Manne (drums) can be seen. Shorty Rogers (trumpet) is leading the band. He and Bob Keene (clarinet) supply off camera solos for the actors.

Goofs
The lights above the elevator on the ground floor of the United Nations building indicate that the elevator travels 36 floors in a few (i.e., 3-5) seconds. That kind of acceleration, speed, and braking would injure occupants of the elevator, especially the elderly operator. That distance in that period of time would exceed 60 mph.

Quotes
Peter: Tell me. Is there not work for everyone here in America?
Maggie: Almost everyone.
Peter: So, how it happens that a girl like you steals a coat?
Maggie: I don't know. I was cold. I needed a coat.
Maggie: [thinking about what she just said] More than that, I was fed up, I guess.
Maggie: [standing up] Did you ever put tips on shoe laces?
Peter: Tip on shoelaces?
Maggie: Yeah. That's what I did for two years.
Maggie: [gesturing about her work] There's a big steal machine here, see, and over here, a giant spool of shoelace. You pull it out like this, twenty-seven inches at a time, all day. And then you stamp a pedal and a ton of steel bangs down, cuts the lace and rolls the tip on. Bang like that, and again. Bang, all day. You're scared you'll smash your finger. At the same time, you gotta keep your eye on the assistant foreman. Because every time he comes by he pinches you. You do this until your brain goes numb, and you get thirty-five bucks a week. And then, all of a sudden, you have an appendix attack, an operation, and you're out flat on your back. And you just can't get back on you're feet. And you get fed up. And you want to strike back at somebody, anybody!
Maggie: [after she heaves a sigh] And you steal a coat.

Connections
References Arch of Triumph (1948)

User reviews38

Review

Featured review

7/10

As fresh as today's headlines

The plot of this movie is as fresh as today's news about refugees, asylum seekers, detentions and deportations, sensationalized images of immigrants, and the question of who gets to come to the US. Peter Kaban, a displaced person seeking to enter the US (Vittorio Gassman in a touching performance), escapes from detention and begins a desperate search through nighttime New York for the jazz musician who can corroborate his claims to having saved the life of an American soldier. The story has potential as a remake (sub Syria or Honduras for Hungary, etc)!

The America the writer-director (Maxwell Shane) portrays is not the wholesome suburbia many folks associate with the 1950s, but a tough tawdry urban jungle of sexual harassment, single moms surviving as strippers (Robin Raymond in a sympathetic turn), shabby single-room occupancy buildings,exploited factory workers, kids who have to dance in the street for coins, homeless people sleeping in subways, and desperate people eating food left behind in restaurants...brilliant imagery with a Noir atmosphere.

I did not fully understand Peter's story as a displaced person. He says clearly enough that the Nazis murdered his family and that he had been in Auschwitz, but he does not fill in much between WW II and 1953 --and so in 2018, it is difficult for us to understand exactly who he is and what happened to him in that period. 7-11 million people were wandering through Europe at the end of the war as "displaced persons": Jewish survivors of the Holocaust; Poles, Germans who had lived in Eastern Europe, and Ukrainians; refugees from the Baltic countries that were incorporated into the Soviet Union; and some Nazi collaborators fleeing the Soviets. The US passed strict and rather controversial legislation as to who could come to the US (e.g., only people who were already in displaced person camps by 1945 as well as many other rules), and Peter evidently did not match the approved profile. Maybe viewers in 1953 understood the context more clearly than the average viewer does now.